Lurie: `Glad I wound up buying Eagles'

Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie said he couldn't be happier to be denied in his bid for the Patriots before being able to buy the Eagles in 1994.

Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie said he couldn't be happier to be denied in his bid for the Patriots before being able to buy the Eagles in 1994. (Nick Fierro)

Nick FierroOf The Morning Call

This could have been Jeffrey Lurie's empire. The native New Englander and current Eagles owner tried to buy the Patriots before he ever thought of the Eagles.

Only after he was unsuccessful here did he turn his attention toward Philadelphia.

But on Tuesday, as he looked out over the joint practice between his team and the Patriots, he reiterated how he couldn't have been happier with the way things have worked out.

"I've never actually looked back on it," he said. "It's always been forward. I sort of love the fact that I was able to buy a team where it was more urban, because the Patriots were in Foxboro when I was bidding on them, and a fan base like the Eagles, one of the old line franchises, I've just never looked back, never for one second.

"... I was so excited to try to get an NFL franchise on the east coast or the west coast in a great sports environment. I was very self-limiting, because in terms of the NFL I only wanted [a team] where there was a really football-passionate, hungry fan base in a place I wanted to live, because I wanted to commit myself 100 percent."

When Lurie first heard the Eagles were for sale, he didn't think he had much of a chance because "I always assumed that there would be someone in Philly that would probably understand even better than me the values going forward. I just thought I was always going to be the underdog. And it turned out maybe because I was not in Philly I was able to project the future a little more objectively.